Category Archives: Gaming

Facebook Mafia Wars Clans and War Tactics

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I dont claim to be a mafia wars guru and this post was written solely on my yearlong experience playing Mafia Wars on Facebook. I hope it helps some fellow mafia war addicts. On to the post:

For the casual Mafia Wars player, doing jobs and pressing the attack button off the fight menu are perhaps the two most used features of the game. For others, collecting unusual items and trading them are enough to stay interested. However, for the hardcore players like myself who pride themselves as being fighters and defending their clan members, clan life brings out a total new gaming experience to Mafia Wars.

Before discussing the advantages and disadvantages of joining a clan you might be asking yourself, how do I become a clan member? Most clans distinguish themselves using a “Tag” in front of their name. The tag is a label that distinguishes a clan from other players in the mafia world. Normally a tag would be surrounded by brackets followed by the name of a player: i.e. {CLAN} Al Capone. The Clan name being in the brackets followed by a unique name. There are many variations of clan tags but they are fairly easy to distinguish. Each clan defends their tag name viciously and if an individual “tags” themselves without proper notification it may lead to retribution by the clan admins and their family. To find a clan you may be interested in, search facebook for “clan recruitment” or ” clan warpages” which provide information to contact clan admins. Clan [EWMC] put together a great clan listing of the current clan warpages that can be found on facebook.

Mafia Wars Clan Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages:

Personally, I would have quit playing Mafia Wars if not for my mafia war “family”. Most families work almost like a mob or military unit. Normally there is a hierarchy of players which range from the head honcho (godfather/godmother) all the way down to potential new recruits. Clans are normally similar in structure, but internal operations do vary from clan to clan. In a typical family grouping, there are the admins who are usually the founders of the clan and some close associates, followed by full members who have played and defended the clan for a period of time, and finally potential new recruits who are probationary members and restricted to certain clan information.

Regardless of the clan you are in, as with any family, you are expected to carry your own weight, and if you are a member of a warring clan, it is expected that you participate in “mock” and “real” wars against other clan groups. You are also expected to help your clan members grow in strength when you can, and protect your clan “tag” at all costs.

The advantage to all of this? Family members provide protection, help loot or “farm” equipment for each other, and exchange collection items for bonuses. There is also a comradery that exists as the clan grows and matures, and many times it results in friendships outside of the mafia war community. The sense of pride and belonging to a group is a big deal with membership in a clan, and you be surprised just how serious the game can get when a clan member is disrespected or “bullied” within the “virtual mafia world”.

As your clan grows, you inevitably gain a reputation. Reputation can be good or bad depending on how you look at it. Feared or revered, all clans attempt to establish themselves as a respected group in the mafia war community..

Disadvantages:

You might be asking yourself now, what are the disadvantages of being in a clan? All the advantages sound great so I definitely want to be recruited. Well, first and foremost, being in a clan basically means that you are linked to a group of people. Once tagged, your are connected to them and their reputation. Many clans have a set of rules to follow and several clan requirements (skill point minimums etc). If your not a team player or lack the requirements necessary, you may find it hard to be a member of a clan. The reputation of a clan is also significant because once you tag up with a clan name, you can expect people to treat you the way they treat other clan members within your group. Sometimes its positive and sometimes negative.

My advice to you? Ask an admin what is expected of you and their requirements and decide if their rules are something you want to follow. If a family is to perform well, it must have a solid chain of command or problems will inevitably arise. There have been many powerful clans who have collapsed because of disagreements and lack of structure. Its just the way things work.

Weapons, Armor and Vehicles

I wont get into too much detail with this because there are a ton or resources on the subject. However, its important to note that you should recruit a minimum of 501 members and try and loot the best items available to you as quickly as you can. Many people do not realize the importance of weaponry, but if you and your opponent are at a similar skill point range, your weapons, armor, and vehicles play and important aspect between winning and losing.

Each mafia member in your family (501 members max in a fight) will automatically use the best weapons, armor, and vehicle available to them. Some weapons specialize on offense while others specialize on defense. For example, with the recent addition of bangkok equipment, the best defense armor in the entire game that may be purchased would be the Shaolin Bodyguard found in the faction store. In order to maximize its effectiveness, you would want to own 501 of them. The same goes for the best weapons and armor. Weapons are not as important as skill points, but they do play a factor in some scenarios. Here is a great resource to find out which equipment is the best to look for and where to find them.

Clan Warpages and Spreadsheets

Clan warpages and spreadsheets are a great way of keeping track of clan wars and updates during a heated battle. I cant share too much information or links to clan spreadsheets, but they are made using google docs and the most effective ones provide a comprehensive listing of members, attack and defensive strength, levels, and links directly to enemy profiles for a quick and precise attacks.

Links are collected by the copy and paste method of the green URL found in a profile. Once in a spreadsheet or SS, the links can be pulled up quickly by pressing CTRL + LEFT CLICK on a mouse. This works for a PC only. Im not sure how links are pulled up on a Mac. Whats great about this feature is that you can hold CTRL down and click multiple links to pull up several tabbed players at one time. Each with the attack button ready for your cursor.

Many clans also boast their wins on their warpages, so while at war it is very easy to determine who your live targets are by looking at the latest posts on their warpage. If an enemy has posted a fresh kill, there is a good possibility that they might be up and ready to receive an attack. Click their name on the SS and fire away until you put them in a bodybag.

Communication

Communication during a clan war is vital to a clans success. Most successful clans use the free chat application provided by skype. It does not require a mic or camera, and the preferred method of communication on skype is through text chats.

Whats great about skype is that you can create a group and an entire clan can communicate openly with each other in a single “War Room” with the freedom to share live targets and provide backup for weaker members. Some of the best clans time their attacks on large targets and coordinate attacks to occur simultaneously. It can actually be quite fun. Disagreements between clans can also be settled within a group chat created for that particular purpose.

Fighting Tactics and the Importance of Stamina

Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of the game is clan fights. You may think it involves just pressing the attack button, but there are actually a variety of ways to approach it. Stamina is used for three purposes. Attacking, collecting bounty, and robbing an enemy. Each attack costs a single stamina point but stamina for robbing varies depending on the target of interest. Once your stamina is exhausted, you may no longer attack or rob an enemy until it is replenished. The best class suited for fighting and robbing is the Fearless class which recharges a stamina point every 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

Methods of Attack

The Kamikaze or “Kami”

Performing a Kamikaze is pretty self explanatory. Basically when you hit the the attack button, it either says YOU WIN or YOU LOSE. In most cases, if you get the screen YOU LOSE, you back off from the target and look for a weaker target to hit. However, when you “kami” someone, despite losing every fight, you continually press the attack button on the “LOSE” screen until your opponent gets snuffed (0 health) or iced (put under 20 health).

This is most effective when facing a large opponent and having multiple clan members attack them at once. (coordinated on skype) This tactic saves stamina using the “strength in numbers” approach and at the same time focuses fire on one target to take them down. The only disadvantage to kamikaze is that you get no experience points from this and you can actually lose money doing it. The enemy also is showered with free experience points for winning every battle and taking all your cash. The advantage? Its more of a pride thing than anything else. You basically are telling your opponent, “I’m going down fighting”. Many times this earns you alot of respect when a war is over and the dust settles.

Tanking

Tanking is a great tactic when you have the health to do so. Coupled with a large number of defensive skill points, this can be very effective method at drawing enemy fire and using up the enemies stamina points. The minimum number of health points for a good tank is around 750. This normally gives you enough time to absorb some hits and reheal before an opponent can snuff or ice you. Enemies are often hesitant to attack a tank due to two reasons. The amount of stamina used on their opponent and opening themselves to attack from other clan members. I have seen a member attack a single target over 500 times and never see the ice or snuff screen. It can make life really frustrating for the enemy and not to mention quite expensive. It is a real moral drainer when you put so many stamina points into a person while never reaping the bragging rights of a kill.

Sniping

This tactic has its share of criticism, but it works when thrown into a corner. In any war, the object is to stay alive and take down as many enemies as possible. This is perhaps the most effective method to do so. In an earlier post I mentioned that remaining under 20 health provides a cover from attack. No matter how strong a enemy is, he/she cannot attack you while your under 20 health points.

Using that advantage along with a clan spreadsheet can give you a huge edge in clan wars. What basically happens is this. While you are under 20 health points, you open up links that you can attack successfully. Staying under 20 keeps keeps you hidden from taking fire. When you see that your enemy is “up” or available to attack (click the add to hitlist button. If they are not too weak to fight, it means they are up.), you quickly heal yourself and attack the target (s) as quickly as you can. While doing this you are making a kill while taking damage yourself in the exchange. After successfully achieving the kill on your objective(s), your health should be close to or under 20 points making you oblivious to return fire. The enemy can get really frustrated with this tactic. In most cases a very high attack with medium health is the most effective when using this tactic. If your a huge health freak, this will probably not work as well for you.

Hitlisting

Ah yes, the infamous hitlist button. In most friendly wars this button is usually excluded from a war completely. However, in a serious conflict, this button can be very useful. Some clans use the hitlist to ping pong their opponents to each other making it very difficult to pinpoint live targets. While one member hitlists a target, another member lies in wait to take the target out. In order for this strategy to work effectively, two mafia clan members must be on the same server at the same time. The server information is based on the last two digits of your profile URL. I do have the server key listing on my PC, but I am not certain if this information is against the TOS of the game so I will refrain from posting it at this time.

Robbing

Robbing has returned to mafia wars. It seems that it is still limited to the city of New York. I am still fairly new to this feature, so I’ll be updating this as soon as I spend more time playing with it. What I do know is that it takes a load of stamina! haha.

If this article has helped you in anyway, it would be nice to make a small donation to help make my character that much stronger! thanks for your support and dropping by.



God of War 3 (PS3)

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God of War 3 is Sony’s latest installment in their acclaimed God of War trilogy. For those unfamiliar with the series, it takes place in a time when Greek gods ruled over earth. You are Kratos, a fierce Spartan warrior who has been betrayed by the gods of Olympus and seeks vengeance against Zeus and anyone else foolish enough to stand in his way. This third installment is the culmination of events from the first two games and picks up with Kratos heading up to Mount Olympus to finally get his much needed payback. Does he get his revenge? If so, is it a worthy conclusion to all of the epic events that have lead up to this point? read on….

GRAPHICS (10/10)

Right off the bat, I will start with what attracts people immediately about this game, which is the game’s phenomenal graphics. This is perhaps the best looking console game I have ever seen, with the only other game even coming close to it being Uncharted 2. The graphics in GOW3 do an amazing job of recreating Ancient Greece. While playing this game, one really gets the feeling that they are treading though all of these Greek ruins. The level of detail in each environment is mind blowing. While most games are somewhat rooted in reality, it is a real accomplishment to create an incredibly immersive game that is based strictly on someone’s imagination- whcih is exactly what GOW3 does.

Perhaps the single most impressive thing about this game graphically is the character model for Kratos. The level of definition on Kratos’ model is just stagerring. When he picks something up, his back and shouder muscles flex appropriately. everything from little drops of blood on his shiny armor to scar tissue on his face and torso are vrought to life in graphic detail. As amazing as the art desing for this game is, it would be nothing without the incredible execution that is seen in the game’s graphics.

STORY (9/10)

The story in this game is excellent. Fans of the previous games and fans of Greek Mythology will really eat this one up. I won’t get into any of the plot points, but I will say that GOW3 does an great job of tying together all of the elements from the first two games and wrapping them up nicely. Kratos is still as vicious and brutal as ever which is perfect for all of the mythological beasts, gods, and demigods that he is thrown up against in his quest for vengeance. The game’s ending has come under a lot of debate, but personally I thought it was a very fitting and satisfying ending to an already unbelievalbe series. My only gripe is that I am sad that it all had to end.

GAMEPLAY (10/10)

As anyone familiar with the previous installments can attest, the gameplay is fast and furious. While many of the core combat elements remain unchanged, there have been new additions and tweaks that managed to improve upon the already intense combat system. Like previosu games, Kratos gains additional weapons to use in his quest. Unlike the previous games where the additional weapons fall short of the default blades, the addiditonal weapons in GOW3 are actually very useful and each one comes in handy for specific encounters.

Like the previous games, this game features some of the most violent and brutal action seen anywhere. Having played some of the most graphic games ever released, I must say that the GOW series definitely takes the cake as far as graphic violence is concerned and this latest installment just raises the bar. While I’m not a violence whore by any means, there is just something very rewarding about dispatching a group of challenging enemies in the most painful ways imaginable. Nothing says payback like decapitating an enemy with their own weapon.

REPLAYABILITY (8/10)

As great as this game is, there is no multiplayer component. Aside from the single player campaign, the only thing left to do is fight in one of the combat arenas or complete miscellaneous challenges. The campaign mode is great but I’m guessing that the average person probably won’t play through the entire thing more than two or three times at most. I tried out some of the challenges and the combat arena and as much as I enjoyed the game I don’t really see these things holding my interest for too long. I would rather play through the campaign a few more times. The bottom line is that unless you are a die hard fan you probably will not get too much replayability out of this game past the campaign mode.

OVERALL (9.5/10)

This is the final installment in the trilogy and supposedly it is also Kratos’ swan song. After playing through all three games, GOW3 is a truly fitting end to the series. While the first two games had a vision that was somewhat limited by the constraints of the PS2, this game isn’t held back by any technological limitations and it clearly shows. The scale of this game is, for lack of a better word, epic. As overused as that word is nowadays, there really is no better fitting word to describe this game.

The epicness of the game is perhaps most evident in the scale of everything. From the game’s opening in which you are riding on the back of Gaia ( one of the Titans) and leading the charge of Titans climbing Mount Olympus, the game grips you and never really lets go until the game’s conclusion. It is not uncommon to encounter bosses and characters that occupy the entire screen and in some cases multiple screens. Seeing the trilogy’s conclusion play out on such a grand scale is a truly fitting ending. There is a ton of polish and attention to detail that went in to making this game and it definitely shows. This is a game that every gamer should at least play through one time just to get the experience.

MLB 10: The Show (PS3)

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Good baseball video games are tough to come by. Even the best developers have fallen victim to junky control mechanics or wonky baseball physics. Like many other sports games, once a developer finds a control scheme that works, it is best to just stick with it and tweak it as required with each new version. The difficult part is finding solid control mechanics to use. Fortunately, MLB 10: The Show has this in the bag. With a few other baseball options on the market now, is this truly the best one? read on…

GRAPHICS (10/10)

Although EA Sports has trademarked its slogan “It’s in the game”, it should really consider leasing that motto to Sony for this game. It is amazing the amount of detail that made it into this game. It is amazing to see Derek Jeter come to the plate and do his little shimmy before getting in his batting stance or seeing an outfielder dust off his uniform after diving for a ball. There are just counteless minor details that baseball fans will just eat up.

The graphics themselves are pretty spectacular also. The players actually look like the players and not some crazy CGI rendered images of players. Often times player models will look good when up close or at the plate, but show that same player waiting on first base and he suddenly looks mildly deformed. This is not the case with MLB 10 where all the players look realistic all the time. The stadiums are all perfect replicas of their real life counterparts. If you’re playing at Fenway the Green Monster is brought to life with lush detail. Everthing from the billboards to the scoreboards to the players just screams authenticity in this game.

GAMEPLAY (10/10)

As pretty as the game looks, this is what it all really comes down to. Fortunately, the game more than delivers in thsi department. The game utilizes the same tried and true pitching mechanics that require you to push the proper face button to select your type of pitch, then use X to aim the pitch and determine how hard it will be thrown. Batting is also fairly simple as you use “x” for a contact swing or square for a power swing. I have never once used the quare button while batting and I haven’t had any problems connecting with X. Regardless, these control interfaces are by far the best ever created in a baseball game. Other games (such as MLB 2k10) use different control schemes and they wind up falling flat due to the high margin of error involved with the inputs.

The only gripe I had is with the fielding and how players dive for balls. For example, when you are using the shortstop and you are chasing a liner that your guy could easily pick up, sometimes the game never initiates the animation for the player to scoop the ball up, resulting in your player being on top of the ball and it rolling between his legs into the outfield. This is especially frustrating when you have a double play perfectly set up only to be robbed by some shoddy hit detection which prevented your player from picking up the ball. While this is not a gamebreaker, it is very frustrating. There were so many times when I would have pitched a perfect inning only to be robbed by a bobbled ball that results in a 2 run RBI. Maybe this is omething that can be fixed with a patch, but for now its just the way things are.

SOUND (7/10)

The sound of the games is actually pretty good. The crowd roars loudly whenever something exciting happens. The ump’s voice is distinguishable as he calls out strikes. The crack of the bat echoes through your speakers when a batter makes contact. All of he sound effects are great and really give off that stadium vibe.

The one thing that brings down the audio portion is the horrendous commentary. For the most part, the commentators are fairly decent. There are a lot of times when they will add their 2 cents at the worst possible times. If you ever strike out, you will most likely get an earful about it from the commentators as if they were the batting coaches. Its bad enough to strike out but then to hear the commentator ripping you about it just makes things so much worse. there were seriously times when I wanted to just walk up to their booth and punch them, they get that irritating.

ONLINE (7/10)

The online games I played were pretty lag free, but not completely. For a game like this, one second of lag can mean the difference between winning and losing. I can’t count the number of times I would’ve had a strike out only to fall victim to lag resulting in my pitch being slow and getting crushed out of the park. it is just too difficult to hit or pitch when you are fighting lag at the same time. I’m sure people with really good internet connections can probably play this game online without any problems but when I played I always fell victim to lag.

OVERALL (9/10)

This game is a must have for nay baseball fan out there. Unfortunately it is only available on PS3. This is one of the few PS3 exclusive titles that make 360 owners green with envy. When compared to the baseball offerings on other systems, MLB 10 smashes those hands down. The learning curve for this game is fairly steep, but once you start to get it down it is one of the most rewarding gaming experiences around. MLB10: The Show is by far the best console baseball game I have ever played, perhaps even the best sports game I have played.